The Evolution of Coffee Houses

The Evolution of Coffee Houses

The Evolution of Coffee Houses

Remember a few years ago when Wi-Fi access in coffee shops was considered as something you needed to ‘buy’ and didn’t come free with the drinks you buy? However, everything’s changing entirely now. More coffee shops are providing more and more amenities in their shops like free Wi-Fi, board games, and working space!

Coffee shops are slowly evolving into something else. Take one example, a customer is more likely to spend a lot of time in a coffee shop with one to three maximum orders per day or per visit. Another example is a customer using a coffee shop as a place to meet people, catch up with people to discuss ideas, business, meet their dates, or just simply catching up.

There’s a recently published article from marketing professor Merlyn Griffiths which explained about customer territorial behaviour focusing in coffee shops. After going through investigations, a single beverage would be purchased for the customers to remain in the coffee shop and do their work for long hours and most of them are surrounded by gadgets.

In the United States of America, coffee houses are one of the places for people to make new friends, date, and catch up. It’s pictured in the all-time big hit TV show Friends too, where they catch up in a coffee house over a few cups of drinks, meet new people, and date. As the years passed by, coffee houses are not the usual place to sell coffee, but something more than that. It has been transformed with customers’ experiences.

However, every ‘culture’ in coffee houses are different. It works the same with customers. Every customer has their own wants and needs. Some customers want to sip a coffee, sit quietly without being bothered with anyone and just focus on work by just simply purchase a cup of coffee and the seat is all for themselves. Some customers want to hang out with people over a coffee, catch up, be active and talk. Different coffee houses have different markets too.

Some customers may disagree with this especially when there’s a new group of people coming in the coffee house. This has caused the employee to notice carefully whether some customers are taking too many seats or not. Although some coffee houses have their own rules, some people will like the rules and keep coming back, but some people will dislike the rules and just prefer other coffee houses.